Deja Crew: Once and Again.

[Note: the Olympic Figure Skating commentary is on the bottom of this page.–Ed.]

This always happens, if you’re a flightcrew person long enough, sooner or later. Across the terminal, changing planes, maybe even on the employee bus, but somewhere in your polyester-clad day, someone catches your attention. Wait. I know you. But from where? Slowly, the fog of distance and time gives way to remembrance and:

So good to see you again, my old friend from “back in the early days” when “things were always fun,” when crews had more time to hang out, layovers were longer and everyone wasn’t beat to death or worse, older now. But we can catch up, remember, ask about other crew friends and see where everyone is, how everyone’s doing despite the ravages of time and the changes that have battered our work life. Who’s transferred bases or aircraft, married, divorced, retired or just plain old stopped flying altogether? Mostly, though, we remember, share a laugh, a good time.

Last summer it was us with a couple other crews shipwrecked in the Mexico City Airport Hotel because of thunderstorms in Dallas. Naturally, everyone hung out together and thank God we had Spanish-speakers on the crew to smooth the way. Remember that little dive behind the hotel?

Crews still go there. We  stuffed ourselves to the gills for about $2.25 each. Of course, we paid dearly, eventually. Yes, the “Salmon Carpaccio” was delicious, seriously, (Note to Self: go ahead, eat raw fish in Mexico, then exist as a human shower nozzle for days afterward) but my fever lasted for a week and if I recall, the #1 Flight Attendant had to reschedule her bridal portrait because she was sick as a dog for days. Same deal at “The Nunnery” in Monterrey, Mexico, remember? You could make a meal of the excellent Tapas–then the Tapas would eventually eat YOU alive.

Or how about the long Mildew Plaza layovers in Manhattan, where we found out the reason the now defunct “Westside Cottage II” advertised “free wine with dinner:” it was so vile that no one could gag down more than a Dixie cup. Total. The van ride in, the van ride out: always a traffic snarl, but a social hour in the morning trying to wake up and not have a coffee bath on the pot-holed drive through midtown, a yack fest late at night from Newark or LaGarbage trying to wind down from eight hours of flying.

Don’t forget “Miller’s,” our old stand-by on Chicago layovers inside the Loop. How many frozen Lake Michigan arctic blusters did we weather there, only a merciful body slam or two from the welcome revolving doors of the Palmer House? Or before that, the Americana Congress across from the fountain: a cab ride to Gino’s, dash back, cut through Miller’s to save half a frozen block to the hotel.

And those nights in New Orleans, thirty hour DC-10 layovers, hanging at The Dungeon (all 1970’s classic rock–and only classic rock) which didn’t even open till midnight, after blind blues man Bryan Lee’s first set at The Old Absynthe House. Then a good eight hours rest at The Sonesta, and an eye-opening cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe Dumonde and we were good all the way to Seattle, never mind the powdered sugar all over the polyester uniform.

Was there anything better than downtown Montreal and charm of Old Towne? Never was a colder layover in winter, but the sidewalk cafes on summer nights–so European; the food, the bread alone worth bidding that trip.

Vegas? Oh, I remember. Just step across the street to the aging Tropicana, the smoky old-school casino with the hog trough buffets the ancient widebody captains just had to have. Then it was up to the big open air lounge for

watching the hookers work the old guys on package tours and assorted lotharios like the big cats stalking wildebeasts. Yes, you just have to laugh, and we did. Then back to work for another ten thousand miles.

Like right now: I know, you have to go, I do too. You’re headed west, I’m headed east but who knows, one of these days, we’ll see our names on the same crew list again. I hope so. Till then, take care, fly safe–and thanks for the memories. If were lucky enough to fly together again, we’ll make some new ones.

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Olympic Update:

Okay, I don’t care what your coach told you, but there is NEVER a time when it’s okay for a guy to wear a clown suit like this on prime time television, never mind in international championship competition. Sure, your partner likes it and yeah, she’s kind of hot in a starving waifish sort of way, but jeez. Even with the mute button on–couldn’t take the mournful stale “Send in the Clowns”–and the nutcase judges aside, I threw up a little in my mouth when you zipped out on the ice in your clown jammies. For the love of God, you need to man up: pull a hockey jersey over that mess, pee standing up for a change, fart during a triple “Lutz” (whatever the hell that is, but it sounds official); I don’t care but stop ruining everything.  I’m just sayin.’

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“Far Away” revisited.

“There’s no such place as far away.” Richard Bach, the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” guy wrote that, and my parents sent the booklet to me for Christmas, my first Christmas oh-so-far away. They were in Italy–my father an Air Force officer–and I was on Okinawa in the South China Sea at the far side of the globe, also an Air Force officer and pilot. And let me tell you: Mr. Bach notwithstanding, there most certainly is “far away.”

I see it every work day, and I’m just one guy, one journeyman airline pilot. But let me share with you what all aircrew members know, because we’re your silent partners in “far away,” wherever and whenever you go. It’s mostly good, considering those who go because they want to, because they’ve waited so long and now the big trip’s here. I notice the wedding dress in the garment bag hung carefully in the forward closet. I root for you on your big day, am proud of the flight attendants who send you off with something special, because they care.

I root for the old couple–I’ll push your wheelchair, have pushed it for you–bravely going where they can without a thought about “next year,” much less tomorrow, just courageously embarking on their journey of the precious “now” despite limitations life and age have foisted on them.

We see the reality, the distance of “far away” in you when you’re going where you will go but more poignantly, in the eyes of those who must go: the children, like a nomad flock, of divorce. The “unaccompanied minors” as they’re tagged, suspended between divorced parents on holidays and vacations. We see it in the child’s eyes, knowing there’s a loved one to leave, a loved one to rejoin. I’ve shared the tears of a mom, swearing with all my heart that it would be okay, that I would call from the destination and let her know her son was all right, safe with the other parent he also misses.

We’ve seen it with the thousands of silently dedicated young troops we carry too far away. I’ve promised them each, “finish your duty here and I will gladly bring you home.”

And we do. Home to families, back from far away,

whatever it takes, a solemn promise from your silent partner in far away, we will bring you home.

Getting there is what matters, and we see the people on both ends: those you leave, and those you meet. Whether you land at home or far away, I see that in your faces one by one as you deplane. And I really look hard as I say thank-you and good-bye, because that’s what I keep in mind each and every time I take-off, fly and land the jet, following the exact procedure, using all of my years of experience, perfectly every time, night and day, here, there–everywhere.

And that’s the main reason I do and to me, near or far–it’s all the same. Because the secret of “far away” is this: it only seems so, it only matters, because there is a home to go back to. That’s a good thing.

Yes, we are the agent of faraway, but also the angel of home. When you’re ready, we will bring you home. That, without fail, I promise you.

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In case you ever wondered: yes, there is such a thing. Chocolate’s rare, but the best.

The glamorous airline lifestyle.

It’s not just the glamor that makes this job great–it’s the little unexpected “extras.”
Even though we landed last night at 11pm and don’t leave till 3pm today, my crew and I are still at “the short layover hotel” in Raleigh-Durham. That means close to the airport but worse, limited food options.

In this case here at lovely Raleigh-Durham, that means The Wyndham.

Wyndham RDU: in the middle of nowhere.

And this is how I find my room

which is why I don’t have to set an alarm. There will be vacuuming no matter what I hang on my door

Hotel Housekeeping manual: "This sign means vaccum incessantly here at 6am."

Anyway, avoiding the $25 breakfast “scarf-till-you-barf” buffet, I made it till about 11:30am, then had to break down and resort to the dreaded hotel restaurant for a $14 sandwich.

You like plastic plants and elevator music? Of course you do.

Not to worry: with your 10% airline crew discount, this is only going to be a $14 sandwich, with tip.

Decent, huh? Turkey Reuben, fries. What could possibly go wrong now? Look close:

What’s a little fried hair, right? Kind of gives new meaning to their marketing slogan:

I just think maybe a brunette, or some auburn highlights, would be better with fries, don’t you think?

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Things to NOT ever do at the airport.

People don’t like to be told what to do. So, here are some things you really ought NOT do at the airport:

1. You don’t necessarily have to pay to check your bag. Seriously.

Skip this--and the fees.

Just pack a normal-sized bag:

All of these will work.

If your bag weighs over 50 pounds, every airline’s going to charge you and extra $75 to $100 (yes, despite the legend, even Southwest is going to charge you for a bag over 50 pounds). But not if you carry it aboard. So you just take your bag through security instead–you think he cares how much it weighs or how large it is?

It just has to fit through the opening in the screening machine. Take your bag through security and to the gate. Ask the agent at your gate, “You want to gate check this?” They probably will, gladly, to avoid the usual last-minute baggage hassles on board. In fact, they’ll usually make an announcement before boarding to the effect that “if there’s any question as to whether your bag will fit on board, please bring it forward for gate checking.” FREE. This is especially important if you know it weighs more than 50 pounds–which it probably will after you buy more junk wherever you’re going. You like free stuff, right? Here, you just saved at least $50, plus whatever overweight fees you were going to pay.

2. NEVER do this:

Are you nuts?

Why would you put your wallet and watch into an open container and send it off on a conveyor belt to a point where you can neither see it nor reach it? Are you out of your mind?

Let’s talk. First, there’s nothing in your wallet that needs to be x-rayed and even if it did, it wouldn’t set off the screening arch if you walked through with it in your pocket WHERE IT BELONGS (note from your Mom: “Why do I have to tell you these things? Do you not have one lick of common sense?”).

Bag it, so you can find it easily after screening, stash it--and lock it!

Put anything valuable–like your watch, any jewelry, cell phone or if you insist (remember what Mom said) your wallet into a hand-carried bag WITH A SMALL COMBINATION LOCK ON IT.

There. Now when all your stuff goes through the screening arch

but you’re pulled aside to do the “scarecrow” pose while a stranger wandles (“wandle” = the combination of “wand” and “fondle” and you’re likely getting both) you, your valuables are not available for the quick swipe by anyone already through security. And the lock is a MUST: when the security screener asks, “Is this your bag?” he will not be able to open it until you are there to watch, because you don’t have to give him the combo. They can–and will–wait.

3. Don’t depend on anyone to tell you what time or what gate your flight leaves from. Ever. Why?

Because this is 2010, amigo! Pre-program your phone with the phone numbers for:

A. Gate/schedule information.

B. Designated flight rebooking number.

C. Destination hotel/transportation numbers.

Get these numbers from the appropriate website and note: the “rebooking” number is not the same as the reservations number. It’s on your airline’s website–or simply call them before your trip and ask for it.

Of course, this all is dependent upon you knowing your flight number. Not your destination–your specific FLIGHT NUMBER. There may be more than one flight to your destination, so it’s vital you know the number in order to get the correct gate and time info. “Where’s the flight to Omaha?” won’t get you the answers you really need. And in my opinion, even these screens

are less than useful because first, you have to find one, second, they’re often mobbed by what Herbert Nash Dillard termed “the great, heaving, vomiting, unwashed masses”–especially on Southwest–and third, they change often and besides, they only cover an hour or so from the present time.

But look at you all smug and cool because you speed-dialed for the most current gate and schedule information on your cell phone and you already know the latest.

Plus no one stole all your valuables while they lay out in the open on the far side of the screening arch. Right? And you can make the all-important phone call for connecting flight information while you taxi to the gate. Your information will be more current than even what was announced in flight because it’s more recent. And rebooking?

You won’t be in the endless line–which is often outside of security–because you rebooked on your cellphone as soon as a cancellation was discovered. Probably only by you because you shrewdly called. Shhhhhh; quietly proceed to the new gate and get your seat before Herbert Nash Dillard’s group discovers the change.

4. Finally–and this is just for me and every crewmember you might see–don’t ask where the bathroom is. I mean it.

Think about it for a moment (you don’t want Mom chewing your butt again, do you?). The airport, like any public building, has restrooms. If you don’t see one right away, you choose a direction, left or right, and walk till you see one.  Do you have to go so bad that you feel the “right or left” choice is life or death? If so–poor planning. Consider a diaper–if the shuttle astronauts wear them, you can too.

Mostly though, I really don’t want to be aware that you have to go to the bathroom. Although like most crewmembers, with difficult people I keep the “stray dog” maxim at all time: “don’t make eye contact,” but it’s not foolproof. If someone still insists on asking me where the restroom is, I usually ask them, “number one or number two?” People actually stop and consider and are about to tell me when they eventually catch up with the basic norms of decorum and adult personal responsibility. “That way,” I tell them, pointing either right or left, because sooner or later they’ll find a restroom.

I could go on–and likely will in a future blog post–but these four tips will put you way ahead of the traveling masses and make your trip both cheaper and less frustrating.

I know–no one likes to be told what to do. So here’s what not to do and please, listen to me, or you’ll probably have to deal with Mom when things go haywire–and . . .

". . . it's your own fault because you didn't listen, did you smarty pants?"

Besides, when it comes to Item #4, “yes, you should have gone before you left the house.” Thanks, Mom.

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The oriental salmon salad! What’s not to like?

The eagle, the courageous and the blind.

How’s your vision?

You can see clearly if you know what you’re looking for. And you’d have to know what you’re looking for to see the most significant thing in this picture.

It’s a light post, right? Just a big old light stanchion, in this case, on the ramp in the gate area at Orlando International Airport. Is that it?

Look again. Hard to see, but on top of that light post, patiently, quietly and with silent dedication to his task: a bald eagle.

He’s pretty well known among the ground staff and many of the flight crews who pass through the airport. I look for him when we taxi in; he’s usually perched there between flights, something I can relate to, but most folks at the airport don’t know he’s there.

Probably they don’t know because they’re too busy attending to their own travel, their own vacation or business or whatever reason they’ve come to the airport. Not surprising, really.

Unlike the solitary eagle, this is hard to miss and in fact this is mostly what you see in the Orlando airport. But more important than the overweight sunburned vacationers is what makes the magnificent eagle  so difficult to spot: quiet pride, dedication, deadly strength, deliberate discretion, maybe even a camoflauged exterior that blends in with the surroundings. Qualities that like the perch on top of a light stanchion are difficult to see unless you know they’re there and are willing to look hard to see them.

But I do. Maybe because I look with different eyes, because I care about what the solitary dedication and quiet pride in an obscure picture can show you if your eyes are open and focused.

Maybe since unlike most travelers, I’m not there for my own purposes, and as with the Orlando airport, I’m there a lot and so I see things, I take time to look for things others passing through don’t consider. Like the eagle.

A light stanchion, a pay phone, saying goodbye to families–you just have to look, and care. But I have to say, it’s more than just seeing what’s in front of your face. What you don’t see, but which if you care, you know is even more important.

I see this too. On our airline ramp, as one of our fallen eagles makes his way home. Not from vacation, or business, or whatever reason most people fly these days. But from sacrificing everything in the world for you, me and the unseeing regardless. Whether or not we care, or see, or know. The price is paid daily, by our best, brightest, youngest, most courageous and dedicated.

I don’t have a picture of this, but I can’t forget the image of our ground crews as reverently as humanly possible, removing a soldier’s coffin from my jet’s cargo hold, then solemnly placing it on a special, curtained cart to proceed to a waiting, devastated family downline. I don’t have a picture, because I’m usually standing in reverent silence near the cargo hold.

I stand on the ramp, escorting the military escort who stays faithfully with the remains in transit. Then, after paying my respects, I go upstairs into the terminal once again. And that’s the part I hate.

Because there in the terminal, no one knows what’s going on below, on the ramp. No one sees the eagle, no one looks; everyone’s about their own vacation or business or trip. If it were up to me, the flag draped caskets would be raised into the terminal and solemnly carried through while every unseeing self-absorbed passenger in the lounge put down their cell phone or iPod or laptop and stood in quiet respect for the best and strongest among us sacrificing all so that we might go about our travel, our lives, our future. But that’s just me.

I guess it all comes down to what you see, and what you look for. Anyone can see the eagle, and everyone should. Thank God, it’s there regardless.

Donate time or money to the U.S.O., the organization that cares for our military men and women: click here.

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Just don’t ask . . . and I won’t have to lie to you.

God almighty, the brain cells I extinguished in the Hofbrau Haus.

After I graduated from college, I had almost a year to cool my heels before going to Air Force flight school. So, I ended up in a job as a desk clerk in a hotel near Munich. I’d had six years of German in school, could read and write German pretty well, but there were two major problems:

1. I didn’t really know squat about German history in general or Munich history in particular.

2. I realized that even though I knew the language, everything out of my mouth sounded to the Germans like what I hear from the guy in my yard with the leafblower who I can hardly understand.

This was a problem because as part of my job, I was supposed to lead city tours for guests who requested a guide. My boss “Frau Doris” gave me a cheap info book and shoved me out the door with camera laden guests. I came back six hours later and told her I couldn’t lead any more tours because I really didn’t know jack about half the stuff we were seeing–and that the guests were asking about.

“No problem,” she said,  glugging down her daily liter of vodka–really, she never would have hired me had she been sober. “You just make something up.”

“What?”

“Yes, just make something up. They won’t know.” She fired up another cigarette. “And by the time they figure it out, they’ll be 6,000 miles away. So what do we care?”

I’ve stored that away in my Important Realization File.  And many tourists now show their pals pictures of the distinctive architecture in Munich:

Those twin minarets are a result, they tell their friends smugly, of the Turkish invasion of 1200 b.c..  Well, at least that’s the first thing that came to my mind when they asked. But sooner or later–and 6,000 miles away–some knowledgeable person gutting it out over their boring vacation pictures would finally say, “What?! There was never a Turkish invasion of Germany.” What did I care? It shut them up at the time.

I bring this up to illustrate a point: most of the time, if I don’t know, it’s probably because I really don’t care. So, it’s better if you don’t ask me in the first place. Yes, this extends to in flight.

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s childhood or anything, but here’s the truth: my P.A. in flight–you know, the “this is your captain speaking” cliche they use on TV but is kind of useless since I actually have a name–is canned because it’s easier for me to do over and over ad nauseum. So, I make up a few cities we’ll be flying over, add our flight time for an ETA, and the weather is always “partly cloudy” and whatever temperature I guess it should be. Then when we land, if the weather’s garbage, you will have to accept that this is the part that’s cloudy in my “partly cloudy” report.

Don’t even start with the “what are we over” crap either. Here, you tell me:

Okay, what street are you on? Can’t tell? Either can I–and this is what I’m looking at to navigate your jet five miles above your city or state or whatever. No wait–there it is!

Right? Are we good now? And yes, it’s partly cloudy–this is the part that isn’t cloudy. Plus whatever temperature I make up because it’s kind of a pain to convert degrees Centigrade to Fahrenheit.

The actual weather at our destination? Here you go:

Isn’t “partly cloudy” a lot easier to deal with? We’re going anyway and I’ll handle this when we get there.

Now, I could go on all day about Munich fables, plus don’t even get me started on the translations! Once, after drinking with a guest, he–okay we–decided that it would be funny if I wrote his wife the note she needed for a hairdresser in town and in German, made it say “bitte mein kopf rasieren.” Which means “please shave my head.” Seemed pretty funny till she returned with a crewcut. Thank God it was a weekend so Frau Doris was drinking at home and couldn’t fire me.

Maybe you want to stash all this in your “Important Realization File” and reflect on it briefly before you reach for the call button to ask for information.

Any other questions? If I don’t know the answer, I’ll sure find out for you. Or more likely, just make something up. Still want to ask about our arrival time? Didn’t think so. Now you’re catching on.

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Sent in by an alert traveler, this begs the question, “Anyone feel a draft in here?” plus, of course, “what were you thinking?”

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Today was a good day for recording and mixing. Do you want comatose, or Spinal Tap? Both, you say? Here’s the former

Tempest (Think ocean, storm, rocks, waves . . .)

And here’s the latter

Monstrous (Fire up that bong)

Reality, childhood, and Orion waves.

The intersection of my laziness as a person and my seniority as a pilot is this: I seldom fly early mornings, which means I often fly at night. Since our flight schedules are based on seniority and I’m not a morning person, that’s usually my preference.

In all my years of flying, staring at a night sky like black velvet strewn with jewels of varying sizes and colors, I’ve come to find what seem like old friends in the simpler constellations (remember, I’m lazy) like The Dippers, the “W” of Cassiopea, and on most nights Orion. No matter what’s going on in the cockpit, no matter what’s transpired that day, there they are every night, brighter than ever once you’re at cruising altitude and above most of the atmosphere tainted with smoke and smog and the detritus of civilization as well as nature’s continuous slop of fires and volcanoes and disastrous what not.

It’s a touchstone of distance, too, the way they lay out in the sky depending on how far and wide you’ve flown. Down in the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and below the equator, the stars are all up there but at impossible angles and positions, not because they’ve moved, but because you have, having flown so many thousands of miles past your usual perspective on Earth.

I was telling this to my sweet third grader last year, describing how no matter what, when I’m flying in the northern hemisphere, I can eventually find my old friend Orion, “The Hunter,” usually over my left shoulder in the eyebrow window of the cockpit, steady as a faithful old friend. Then I know where I am in the world, in the sky, in reference to my celestial compadre.

Without a heartbeat’s pause, she asked in wide-eyed wonder, “does he ever wave to you?”

And I hated myself as a parent the very instant my mouth spoke the words, “Uh, no, honey; it’s just a group of stars in a pattern.” Because without meaning to, I’d done the adult thing, contributing unwittingly to the piece by piece dismantling of the childhood wonder I’d just been blessed to wander into. Like any imaginative child, she knew nothing of impossibility, rather, only what she could dream based on what she could see.

Me, on the other hand, after a thousand views of that night sky could only see what is, or at least what I know after childhood dominated by dreams gives way to reality dictated by fact over years and years of making a living in flight. I couldn’t see anything anymore with a perspective given over to knowledge of the impossible rather than the childhood belief in all possibility.

Maybe that shift in belief versus reality is inevitable, so maybe what I’d said was merely a part of the necessary exit from childhood, softened perhaps because it came from a parent who cherished her and her precious grade school years.

But more likely, I’m afraid, this whole incident highlights the coldness of adult-based reality: you give up your sense of wonder and with it, claim a heartless confidence in what you know, period. Then rather than living life as a dream of wide-open possibilities, time becomes a painless yet numb sleep walk from work to days off to work; lather, rinse, repeat.

I don’t really have an answer for this conundrum, and maybe there isn’t one. Clearly, the whole notion of constellations was born of some ancient but adult imagination and endures in modern times despite a millennium of science that proves all of it to be groundless in fact. Maybe that’s the whole point: it’s not that facts don’t matter because really, they do. But perhaps they coexist because there’s value in dreams, maybe even more so for the soul, than in reality.

That’s the lesson I’ve learned: my parenthood can be a bridge between the two for my precious child. I’ll strive to listen carefully and answer more slowly, with careful regard for what’s possible rather than the adult eye for what isn’t. I’ll try that perspective, too, at night at high altitude, stargazing during cruise. Not so much looking for Orion to wave at me, but grateful for the knowledge that in a child’s mind, he just might. Anything beyond that is really not important.